Oil spill may influence climate bill

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Some Senate Democratic lawmakers and their environmental allies are trying to link the BP oil spill with the long-fought bid to cap greenhouse gas emissions -- a controversial leap that has generated heated debate.
AP Photo

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said he expects to build support for climate legislation as constituents see more and more images of the oil-saturated Gulf. “It’s getting pretty visual as to what’s happening,” he said.

Former EPA Administrator Russell Train said there are clear parallels between recent events in the Gulf and the environmental laws he helped implement during his time in the federal government from 1973 to 1977 under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

“When you focus on an oil spill, what are you going to do?” Train said. “I think there’s got to be fundamental change in demand of all kinds to address both climate and energy.”

With early environmental laws, experts said that Congress often battled less over whether they should pass and more over the details, like mandatory deadlines or a specific definition.

“The challenges came in the context of the legislation, not the fundamental basis for the legislation,” said Leon G. Billings, a top Democratic aide on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee from 1966 to 1978.

Opponents of climate legislation are now taking issue as advocates of the legislation try to draw parallels to help them get it passed.

“Forget about being a senator; as a resident of the state where this stuff is washing up, I think that’s pretty callous, quite frankly, when there’s an ongoing flow and an ongoing crisis,” said Sen. David Vitter (R-La.). “I think it’s pretty reasonable to say, let’s solve that problem first. Let’s not just politicize it for whatever gain in whatever direction you can.”

“They’re searching for anything because they know cap and trade is dead; any way to resurrect it,” said Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee and an outspoken skeptic on the science linking humans to global warming. “Some of them — I hate to say this, but I know they’re out there — are really glad it happened. The same thing was true with the Exxon Valdez. I remember they were rejoicing up there.”

Even some traditional environmental allies are split on Congress’s response to the spill. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) told reporters before the July 4 recess that he thinks the Senate needs to focus on the Gulf of Mexico and related offshore-drilling safety issues and then address climate later.

“It’s a stand-alone problem that needs to be solved,” Lautenberg said. “Let us get through this. The climate bill deserves its time, but it’s, frankly, at the moment, a separate issue.”

Billings, who also served in the Maryland state Legislature for a dozen years, said that the push to pass climate legislation because of the oil spill won’t work because it “evokes a whole separate set of political reactions” from the public.

“If you asked me, ‘Do I think that the oil disaster in the Gulf would be a basis for passing major energy conservation and modernization legislation?’ I’d say yes,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s a basis for passing legislation on climate change.”

Readers' Comments (19)

"Oil spill may influence climate bill." Translated: Barack let the oil flow, without suspending ANYTHING that would help in the clean-up, in order to get a few photo ops of a Pelican soaked in oil...so he can raise revenue through taxes and call it "cap and trade."

$2 billion of your tax dollars will soon be going to the state-owned Brazilian oil company, Petrobras so they can explore the off-shore Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin. The WSJ wrote, “The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a ‘preliminary commitment’ letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount.” This money will come either in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees.

Before Congress passes ANY ENERGY LEGISLATION they need to address this because Obama, while wanting to protect America from evil oil, does not seem that way about Brazilian oil. Or is it entirely about something else. I have learned, not to listen to what teleprompter man says, but rather what he and his rad-friends do that is true policy.

That's been 0zer0's plan all along. "Never let a crisis go to waste." That's why he has deliberately dithered, refused foreign assistance, and made the spill far worse than it should have been. He wanted two things from his Gulf War - momentum for his Cap & Tax, and a $20 Billion slush fund to benefit his marxist fascist agenda.

The 0zer0 regime and litard dumbcrats have declared war on America. It's time to take back America from the marxist fascists. All libtard dumbcrats and 0zer0 care about is power, and want to destroy America to maximize that power. They spend to redistribute the wealth to their backers, that are nothing but leaches on the economy and society. Illegal Immigrants, Hollywood, Unions, Lame Stream Media, Lawyers, Banks, Wallstreet, Insurance Companies and Welfare Queens. The dumbcrats are destroying the country piece by piece with their arrogance, hypocrisy and incompetence, and America has seen through their lies.

The poor libtard dumbcrats and 0zer0 fail time after time. They can't plug the hole in the gulf, they can't plug the hole in the border. They can't plug the hole in the economy, in jobs, in the deficit, in healthcare, in Wallstreet, in banks, in Freddie & Fannie, in housing, in N.Korea, in Iran, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Gitmo, and on and on and on.

Everyday the failures of the libtard dumbcrats and the 0zer0 Regime prove Joe Wilson correct when he told 0zer0 - "You Lie!"

America has rejected the Great Divider, Campaigner In Chief, Dear Reader Leader, the closet muslim, marxist fascist narcissist petulant man-child 0zer0. November can't come soon enough so America can undo their mistake in 2006 when they let the dumbcrats run wild. This time they will throw out the libtard dumbcrats in 2010, and complete the purge of the putrid garbage in 2012 when 0zer0 is removed.

Gulf states have had a lot of experience in dealing with catastrophe over the last few years. Have we learned nothing from Katrina? The magnitude of the disaster Katrina brought on severely exposed Louisiana’s lack of emergency preparedness, as well as that of the federal government. What did we do? We immediately changed our policies so that we’d be prepared for the next hurricane season. It’s the same thing with this oil spill. Except the next risky season is upon us now that the moratorium on deep-water drilling has been lifted. We have to change the system from the ground up and immediately. Big oil is at the base of our nation’s climate and energy issues and has only been rewarded through billions of dollars in subsidies. It’s time for a change. It’s the only way to save our coast, restore our economy, help our environment, and secure our future. We need comprehensive climate and energy legislation that does just that NOW.

I find it a shame that Americans really have no say in the policies being dictated from Washington. When Republicans hop on the jackass mail side, one has to wonder what special interest group got to them.

Changes in health care, cap and trade are huge burdens on America. These are the kind of legislation that we can no longer trust our elected people to truly address the best needs for the country and should be put to a public vote.

Any fool that thinks the U S is the prime reason for "climate change" is an ostrich and should realize that when these restrictions on drilling are invoked, they will be wondering why they cannot afford to drive their B M W or SUVs. ONE WORLD ECONOMY, ONE WORLD ORDER !!! Bend over and looked please America while POTUS takes a vacation on you dime and shoves marxist bills down our throat.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change misled the press and public into believing that thousands of scientists backed its claims on manmade global warming, according to Mike Hulme, a prominent climate scientist and IPCC insider.

The actual number of scientists who backed that claim was “only a few dozen experts,” he states in a paper for Progress in Physical Geography,

It costs 4 to 5 cents to produce one kilowatt hour of electricity using natural gas or coal, but 25 to 30 cents to produce one kilowatt hour of electricity from solar. Check http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... to watch President Obama say that his energy policy will cause electricity rates to “skyrocket”. That will not only increase the monthly bill for every home in the country but also increase the cost of all goods and services. And that only relates to electricity. There is no current alternative for replacing every fossil fuel based airplane, ship, train, truck, car and tractor in the world. We need to do everything we can to stop trashing the planet and work very hard to improve green energy technology until it is cost efficient. But it is stunning that the President seriously wants to force the price of electricity to increase 5 to 6 times what it is today, just to make alternative energy sources price competitive.

Based on the slow crawl of the administrations response to this spill and the fact that it happened to occur on Earth day do you wonder if Green Peace or some other whackos intentionally damaged the oil rig in hopes they could cause additional rules and regulations to come about? The Green's have made it their life's work stopping all types of power plant construction, stopped surface mining for coal and now have essentially shut down oil drilling in the gulf. No one has talked about the real cause of the explosion, so it is possible the green's just plain blew up the well.

of course the oil spill will influence the climate bill. Why do you think Obamey went golfing while everybody asked for help. Follow the money,,,,,, Al Goreleon got rich of fools and Obamby's friends are very big invested in green energy. He has a lot to pay back and probably make a bundle himself. Always follow the money kids, it NEVER fails and the oil people are not the robbers.

The bill always comes down to the carbon tax....redistribution of wealth....from the taxpayers to all the players in congress reaping the big bucks. Vote all these leetches out of office. Pigs serving their self interests. They should all be in orange jumpsuits.

Big oil spill, govt inaction and refusing outside help ,remember" let no good crisis go to waste" Al Gore,maurice Strong- starting 1995 big push for global warming and now all the ***** lying scientists at East Anglia, penn state and ippc have been cleared by independent investigations run by other lying ,grant sucking so called scientists.